Pulse Oximetry. |
Shin Ok Koh |
Department of Anesthesiology, Yonsei University, College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea. |
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Abstract |
Pulse oximetry has rapidly become the primary means of assuring safety of anesthesia, postoperative patient transport, recovery, critical care and other patient care situations potentially involving ventilatory depression, airway obstruction, inadequate pulmonary function or hypoxia. However pulse oximetry may fail in the face of hypotension, low pulse pressure or vasoconstriction, and with motion and respiratory artifacts. The pulse oximeter should be limited to monitoring changes in arterial oxygenation and should not be used as a qualitative substitute for arterial blood analysis. Pulse oximetry will provide new therapeutic guidelines if being used with combination with direct blood gas analysis, capnometry and transcutaneous PO2 and PCO2 monitoring. |
Key Words:
Pulse oximetry |
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